Many days after Turley’s disappearance a French trader, from the mining town of Libertad, came to Granada to inform Walker of the fate of the deserters. When they first appeared in Chontales the people supposed they were on duty, but their violent and rapacious acts soon betrayed their true character. They passed into the mining district, and near Libertad they tied up and flogged a Frenchman, in order to make him disclose the place where he kept his gold. Then the French of the district, composed mostly of those discharged from the army at Rivas in the March previous, acting together, raised a number of the people of the country and attacked the robbers. Turley’s party was, it seems, short of ammunition, and they finally agreed to give up their arms if they were furnished with a guide to conduct them to the Blewfields. Their arms were given up, and soon thereafter, while they were being marched, by their captors, toward the town, fire was opened on them, and they were all, except two, slaughtered on the spot. With the exception, however, of Turley’s company, desertion among the Americans was, at that time, rare. The desertions, though not many, were principally confined to the Europeans in the ranks. Many of these Europeans had gone to Nicaragua with the idea of enlisting for the mere pay they were to get; and without the foresight or patience which might enable them to wait for time to enhance the value of the lands they were to receive, they became dissatisfied with the scarcity of money, and sought means of leaving the army and the country. New-comers, also, were frightened by the reports constantly circulated as to the number and strength of the enemy; and it was among those who knew least of the land that the disposition to despond was greatest. In addition to these causes, tending to diminish the strength of the army, a large proportion of the men going to Nicaragua at the expense of the State, were found unfit for military service. As they could not be examined surgically in the United States, their defects were not known until they came under the eye of the surgical staff at Granada. Those familiar with medical statistics, may readily imagine how many of the men were rejected for the single disease of hernia.